CAIRO — In a scheme to break Cairo’s monopoly over literary events and catch readers at the beach, Egypt’s General Egyptian Book Organization (GEBO), the organizer of Egypt’s iconic Cairo International Book Fair, has turned to the country’s coastal towns as new venues for summer book fairs.

The initiative was welcomed by Egypt’s literary and media circles. “A book on the beach is better than one in a store,” read the Sout al-Omma newspaper's headline announcing GEBO’s plan to hold book fairs in several different governorates and resorts throughout the summer.

GEBO opened its first local book fair at the popular Mediterranean resort town of Ras al-Bar, the country’s top summer spot in Damietta governorate. Ras El-Bar's first book fair was held near the chic Beau Rivage Hotel June 26-July 5. It was followed by the Port Said Book Fair, between July 12 and 21. Another fair, this time in the port city of Mersa Matruh, west of Alexandria, will take place in late July.

The Cairo International Book Fair was for a long time Egypt’s only book-related event. Held every January since 1969, the book fair is the oldest and one of the largest in the Arab world. Last year, it attracted more than 850 publishers and nearly 4 million visitors, leading GEBO, a government group that publishes and distributes books, to announce that it would now like to hold it twice a year, with a second one in autumn.